Traditionally, the television has been simply a portal for content streamed from another source (e.g., a network broadcaster or a cable company). The user generally did not have any interaction with the TV more than using the remote control. With recent advances in the diversity of content and platforms available for the television, the definition of “remote” or “input device” used to interact with TV has changed. The remote control is taking on a new role in the interaction between the user and TV. The utility of the remote control and the ways it can be utilized from knowing its position relative to the TV may now be important factors in differentiating remote controls and in their product valuation.
These changes to remote controls first came to gaming systems and the demand to replace the traditional “controller” device with something more intuitive and natural. This meant addressing device position determination. In the gaming industry, this trend has led to the Nintendo Wii, PlayStation Move and Microsoft Kinect. These systems are very intuitive for gaming, but require either specialized (expensive) accessory devices or have heavy processing requirements on the system. For example, Wii and PlayStation use optical tracking. Gaming systems often utilize wireless-signaling over power-line antenna for device synchronization. These synchronization methods rely on deterministic delays between devices. They also use IR emitter/detectors to translate signals optically between devices.
For lower power systems, specifically multimedia or application-based devices, these requirements are expensive and impracticable, and to some degree presently unattainable.
It would be desirable to make the handheld device, such as a smartphone, more versatile and useful. It would be desirable to enable position determination of a device by using existing sensors, such as a microphone and speakers, such as those found in TVs, photo frames, e-readers, and the like, and avoid complicated sensors.